Galatians 3:16-29

For Reading and Meditation:     Galatians 3:1-25

The Christian Church has always struggled to get the balance right between faith and works. Romans is the great book on "faith" while James is the great book on "works." I know some Christians who never read the book of James, taking sides with Martin Luther who called it a "book of straw." Martin Luther may have been...

For Reading and Meditation:     Galatians 5:1-15

Permit me to pause in our meditations on the chief differences between the Christian faith and non-Christian religions to turn our eyes inward to the state of affairs within the church. We have not been as careful as we might in relation to this matter of vertical conversion. Oftentimes we have been more interested in...

God is, and must be, the eternal enemy of sin. He cannot be reconciled to it: it is the abominable thing which He hates. He cannot look upon it but with abhorrence.

How then can God receive, bless, or commune with us? Only through a Mediator. Jesus fills this office; He stands between God and us; He honours all the Father's perfections; and renders us and our services acceptable through His glorious righteousness and precious blood. God can only love us, receive us, commune with us, or...

The fatherhood of God is common to all his children. Ah! Little-faith, you have often said, "Oh that I had the courage of Great-heart, that I could wield his sword and be as valiant as he! But, alas, I stumble at every straw, and a shadow makes me afraid." List thee, Little-faith. Great-heart is God's child, and you are God's child too; and Great-heart is not one whit more God's child than you are. Peter and Paul, the highly- favoured apostles, were of the family of the Most High; and so...

In reading a verse like this, it is tremendously important to know what it means and what it does not mean. Otherwise we might find ourselves adopting grotesque positions that do violence to the rest of Scripture and to the facts of life.

The key to the verse is found in the words "in Christ Jesus." Those words describe our position, that is, what we are in the sight of God. They do not refer to our everyday practice, that is, what we are in ourselves or in the society in which we...

The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one. § Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.To will is present with me, but how to preform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will do, I do not do; but the evil I will not do, that I practice. § We are all like an unclean thing, and all our...

If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! § Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. § [God] predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may...